A day after high school students lay on the ground in the streets in front of the White House, asking “Am I next?” the White House has signaled support for two of the smallest possible steps forward on gun control.

White House chief of staff John Kelly, a retired four-star general, said on Wednesday that he was “shocked” by allegations of domestic abuse against a senior aide whom Kelly had defended a day earlier as “a man of true integrity and honor and I can’t say enough good things about him”.